Personal Narratives
This kind of true story tells about an experience from the writer’s own life.
What is a personal narrative?
This comparison uses like or as: “The river shone like a ribbon.”
What is a simile?
If you are ecstatic about a snow day, how do you feel?
You feel extremely happy or excited.
What punctuation marks go around the exact words a person says?
What are quotation marks?
This is the central idea or most important message a passage is mostly about.
What is the main or central idea?
Personal narratives are usually told from this point of view, using words such as I, me, and we.
What is first person?
This device gives human actions or feelings to something nonhuman: “The flowers danced in the breeze.”
What is personification?
A phone rings again and again without stopping. Which vocabulary word describes how it rings?
What is incessantly?
Choose the correctly punctuated sentence:
A. Jon said, “please close the door”.
B. “Would you please close the door?” asked Jon.
C. “Please close the door”, said Jon.
B. “Would you please close the door?” asked Jon.
A dated journal entry usually tells readers these two things about the events.
When the events happened and that the entry records events from a particular day.
In Hello, My Name Is, Jennifer Lou’s feelings about her name change as she grows up. What do we call the way a person thinks or feels about a topic?
What is perspective?
This device gives all human qualities to non-human characters.
What is anthromorphism?
A bright coat makes someone easy to spot in a crowd. The person is easy to -----.
What is discern? The person is discernible—able to be noticed or recognized.
“The classroom was a beehive of activity.” Is this a metaphor or a simile?
What is a metaphor? It compares the busy classroom to a beehive without using like or as.
In "The First Real San Giving," Blanco's grandmother is alarmed by the pop-up timer in the turkey. What does this moment reveal about her?
She is unfamiliar with American cooking traditions or technology.
A personal narrative often uses this text structure to tell events in the order they happened.
What is chronological sequence?
This comparison says one thing is another without using like or as: “Lily’s eyes were diamonds.”
What is a metaphor?
Name the tool that clamps tightly to hold something in place, and the shuttle part that carries the crew.
What are vise grips and the orbiter?
Make this sentence more vivid by replacing moved with a strong verb: “The breeze moved the leaves.”
Answers will vary. For example: “The breeze rustled the leaves.”
Put these events from "The First Real San Giving" in order: Abuela asks about the blue thing, Blanco explains the timer, Abuela says Americans make everything easy, Abuela becomes alarmed by the blue thing.
Abuela becomes alarmed by the blue thing; Abuela asks about the blue thing; Richard explains the timer; Abuela says Americans make everything easy.
A graphic essay combines writing and images. Explain one way its images can help tell the story.
Images can add information, show feelings, or help readers understand an experience beyond what the words say.
What is the difference between personification and anthropomorphism?
Personification gives something nonhuman a human quality or action. Anthropomorphism presents an animal or object as if it thinks, speaks, or acts like a human character.
Name the space shuttle part that helps launch it, the part that holds fuel, and the scientific instrument astronomers use to study light.
What are the booster, the tank, and a spectrograph?
Which sentence uses a metaphor?
A. Liv's eyes sparkled like stars.
B. Liv's eyes were diamonds in the sunlight.
C. Liv's closed her eyes as she wished.
B. “Liv's eyes were diamonds in the sunlight.”
Richard Blanco includes dialogue in Spanish, such as "¡Ay, Dios mío!" and "Cómo inventan los americanos." Why might he have included Spanish words in his story?
To show his family's Cuban heritage and how they blend both languages/cultures in their home.